UK’s Defence Space Strategy in Context
Gabriel ElefteriuThis analysis by Gabriel Elefteriu notes that the UK’s first Defence Space Strategy is an excellent document with an assertive message. It maps out a coherent and logical path towards UK space power. But delivering a range of complex space capabilities quickly within tight budgets will be a major challenge for the MoD: real civil-military integration and a unified space decision & acquisition authority at the heart of Government is required. The Defence Space Portfolio is also an economic tool that can shape the industrial landscape, so the way the new Own-Collaborate-Access framework will be applied should be a matter of wider debate and geopolitical consideration as well.
A New Deal for Drivers
Ben SouthwoodAverage road speeds around the UK’s cities are painfully low, damaging economic growth and forcing people to endure long commutes or to miss out on the best jobs. In this report, Policy Exchange argues that road pricing could improve the lives of drivers as well as commanding public support.
The Nationality and Borders Bill and the Refugee Convention 1951
Richard Ekins, John Finnis and Simon MurrayWhat rights and protections does the Refugee Convention 1951 require the UK to afford to persons it recognises as Convention refugees? In answering this question, the Ninth and Twelfth Reports of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the Nationality and Borders Bill fundamentally misunderstand the Convention, unwarrantably truncate its text, and misread – or fail to read – the UK Court decisions on which these Reports rely. This research note traces some of the Joint Committee’s missteps.
The Queen’s Speech and Health & Social Care Reform: What was not announced may be more significant than what was announced
The passage of the centrepiece Health and Care Act during the previous session of this Parliament meant that this year’s Queen Speech had a smaller offering for health and social care. A number of priority commitments set out in March as part of the Annual Mandate (which sets out the Government’s priorities for the NHS) were repeated. The priorities are well understood: bring down the elective waiting list; deliver additional diagnostic capacity, including 100 community diagnostic centres; and make progress on the hospital building programme.
The Queen’s Speech and Judicial Power: Could the British Bill of Rights make things worse?
The headline measure is the proposed British Bill of Rights, which would supersede the Human Rights Act. A perennial proposal most recently floated under David Cameron, the Bill’s stated aim is to restore “the balance of power between the legislature and the courts”. Among its main provisions are the establishment of the primacy of UK case law over that of the European Court of Human Rights, new limitations on courts’ ability to “read in” provisions that are not present in legislation, and a new burden on the claimant to prove they have suffered “significant disadvantage” before they can bring a human rights claim, with the aim of discouraging frivolous litigation.
The Queen’s Speech and Housing: Will Street Votes solve the Housing Crisis?
Housing has rarely enjoyed as high a political profile as it does today. A combination of the housing crisis, the abandoned planning bill, the government’s flagship levelling-up programme and it being led by one of the highest profile Cabinet Ministers Michael Gove as well as a slew of recent Tory electoral punishments in which housing was thought to have played a central role have all ensured that housing is now a major part of the government’s legislative infrastructure. So it assumed a pivotal role in this week’s Queen’s Speech, ironically delivered for the first time by a Prince of Wales who himself has had a profound impact on the UK’s architecture and urban development landscape over the past forty years.
Saving a lost decade
A new Policy Exchange report published this week, Saving a lost decade, argues that ministers must become directly accountable for tackling the inequalities that have been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper, authored by Richard Sloggett, Health and Social Care Lead, uses modelling to show that the Government is on course to miss a key manifesto pledge to increase healthy life years by five by 2035. Read the report and Foreword by Rt Hon Damian Green MP and Lord Filkin CBE here.
The report featured in The Financial Times, with the recommendations endorsed by Steve Brine MP, former Public Health Minister, during a debate in the House of Commons, which can be viewed here.
David Goodhart joins the EHRC
Policy Exchange congratulates David Goodhart, our Head of Demography, Immigration & Integration, on his appointment as a Commissioner on the board of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. David will sit on the board for a period of four years. This welcome appointment follows the announcement that Baroness Falkner of Margravine has been nominated to serve as the new Chair of the EHRC. David is the author of Head, Hand, Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Centuryand has recently edited a Policy Exchange report on the technical skills revolution, The Training We Need Now. Read details of the announcement here.
Policy Exchange hosts the Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture
Policy Exchange was delighted to welcome Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor to the President of the United States, for the first of two Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lectures this year. He delivered his lecture, titled “The Importance of Being Candid: On China’s Relationship with the Rest of the World”, in Mandarin, speaking of a “new consensus” in the US, which bridges political divides and unites the whole of society, on the threat posed China’s “technologically enhanced totalitarianism”. Watch the speech here.
Upcoming Events
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Tuesday, 14 September, 2021
12:00 - 13:00
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss will outline Britain’s post-Brexit trade strategy, and make the case for free trade and free enterprise as key tools for the levelling up agenda.
Venue: Policy Exchange
Address:
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Thursday, 2 September, 2021
14:00 - 15:00
Lt Gen H R McMaster, Former US National Security Advisor, Rt Hon Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Former Secretary General of NATO, Lord Sedwill, Former UK National Security Adviser, Tom Tugendhat MP, Chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Chaired by Dean Godson
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Thursday, 26 August, 2021
12:30 - 13:30
Dr Moeed W. Yusuf is National Security Adviser of Pakistan. There will be a Q&A for our online audience over Zoom.